Sign me In
Many American states are making voting harder
AMERICA’S mid-term elections in November will be hugely consequential. If the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, as The Economist’s model suggests they have a three-in-four chance of doing, they will control congressional committees that now protect President Donald Trump from harsh investigation. If Republicans hold on, they can pick up their attempt to repeal Obamacare. Yet few Americans are expected to vote in the mid-terms. Last time, in 2014, just 37% of eligible voters turned out. Worse, many legitimate voters this autumn will be deterred or blocked from casting ballots.
In some states voters have been “purged” from the rolls in overzealous clean-up efforts (see article). Other states demand ever more documentary proof that people are eligible to vote. Well-off homeowners who drive cars and have passports barely notice such hurdles. But young, poor and ethnic-minority voters are more likely to crash into them. Often, this is not just an unfortunate side-effect of tighter voting rules; it is their intent. In Tennessee and Texas student ID cards are not acceptable forms of identification—though gun permits are fine.
Latest stories
Moon Jae-in’s grand design for the Korean peninsula
Plans for land swaps in Kosovo and Serbia run into the ground
Calculating the half-life of a currency
Eliud Kipchoge cuts the distance to the marathon’s magic mark in half
Will an allegation of assault jeopardise Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation?
The home of the Bloomsbury Group is once again a place for new artists
The ostensible purpose of such rules is to prevent electoral fraud. If that were common, they might be justified. But diligent research by the Heritage Foundation, a think-tank, has turned up fewer than 1,200 instances of fraud since 1982, many of them by officials, not fake voters. Billions of votes have been cast since then.
AMERICA’S mid-term elections in November will be hugely consequential. If the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, as The Economist’s model suggests they have a three-in-four chance of doing, they will control congressional committees that now protect President Donald Trump from harsh investigation. If Republicans hold on, they can pick up their attempt to repeal Obamacare. Yet few Americans are expected to vote in the mid-terms. Last time, in 2014, just 37% of eligible voters turned out. Worse, many legitimate voters this autumn will be deterred or blocked from casting ballots.
In some states voters have been “purged” from the rolls in overzealous clean-up efforts (see article). Other states demand ever more documentary proof that people are eligible to vote. Well-off homeowners who drive cars and have passports barely notice such hurdles. But young, poor and ethnic-minority voters are more likely to crash into them. Often, this is not just an unfortunate side-effect of tighter voting rules; it is their intent. In Tennessee and Texas student ID cards are not acceptable forms of identification—though gun permits are fine.
Latest stories
Moon Jae-in’s grand design for the Korean peninsula
Plans for land swaps in Kosovo and Serbia run into the ground
Calculating the half-life of a currency
Eliud Kipchoge cuts the distance to the marathon’s magic mark in half
Will an allegation of assault jeopardise Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation?
The home of the Bloomsbury Group is once again a place for new artists
The ostensible purpose of such rules is to prevent electoral fraud. If that were common, they might be justified. But diligent research by the Heritage Foundation, a think-tank, has turned up fewer than 1,200 instances of fraud since 1982, many of them by officials, not fake voters. Billions of votes have been cast since then.
Related Posts:
- Can you get back deleted Fb Messages
- Facebook Live
- How to make a poll on Fb
- Fb mail Login
- Facebook login account open in English
- Free Facebook sign up Account
- Facebook login free download Software
- Facebook login in mobile phone l
- How to create a poll on Facebook Profile
- Facebook login home page google
A commission to investigate illegal voting set up by Mr Trump was disbanded before it produced a report. In June a judge ruled that Kris Kobach, Kansas’s secretary of state and vice-chairman of the commission, had failed to prove that the statistics concealed an “iceberg” of unrecorded voter fraud in his state. “There is no iceberg,” the judge wrote, “only an icicle, largely created by confusion and administrative error.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.